Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Simon's Cat
Why did I not know about Simon's Cat until today? Everyone on this planet needs to go look at his transcendently wonderful short animated films. You can watch them all in less than 10 minutes. Go now. It will make you happy.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
I'll Be Right Back
My friend, David, sends me his essays from time to time, seeking my 2 cent's worth which I am happy to supply since, in return, I get at least a nickel's worth of things to ponder. His latest, tentatively titled "Travels in My Three Pound Universe", expounds upon the disconnect between our physical and mental selves, to which he refers as Me and Me.2 (or I and I.2 and/or You and You.2, as appropriate, but isn't Me.2 fun to say?).
I can't speak for anyone else, but my Me.2 is in the driver's seat virtually 99% of the time. There may be those rare Zen moments when Me stops to drink in some physical sensation (i.e., being mindful of the moment which is harder to do than it sounds) but, mostly, I live in my head. And my head (ok, mind), while remaining firmly attached to my neck, goes on journeys from which it often returns only reluctantly, dragging its feet and looking back over its shoulder.
Anyway, David covered all this in his essay better than I can. However, it reminded me of how unnerved I was around the age of 13 when I first became aware of how seldom Me and Me.2 were in the same neighborhood. I thought I was nuts. No one else, I thought, can possibly feel this way or they'd be talking about it. That I could find myself in the middle ofa game of dodge ball (ok, that's a bad example - during dodge ball Me was front and center trying to save my skin by hiding behind Shirley Crawford) eating a sandwich and feel like I had just returned from some lengthy mental journey that felt like it must have taken much longer than the allotted lunch period was, frankly, terrifying.
Years went by and I didn't seem much crazier than anyone else - more anxious, more shy, certainly - but not crazier. When I finally got around to discussing this with a couple of people it turns out we pretty much all feel that way in varying degrees. A friend told me her mother called it "sitting on a cloud" which, hands down, sounds better than "being a lunatic".
Someone needs to explain this to children. I can't be the only one who was frightened. And while they're at it, they can teach them to draw by employing the right sides of their brains - which is just about as mindful of the moment as you can get. It's a nice vacation from feeling crazy and everybody's drawings turn out great.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my Me.2 is in the driver's seat virtually 99% of the time. There may be those rare Zen moments when Me stops to drink in some physical sensation (i.e., being mindful of the moment which is harder to do than it sounds) but, mostly, I live in my head. And my head (ok, mind), while remaining firmly attached to my neck, goes on journeys from which it often returns only reluctantly, dragging its feet and looking back over its shoulder.
Anyway, David covered all this in his essay better than I can. However, it reminded me of how unnerved I was around the age of 13 when I first became aware of how seldom Me and Me.2 were in the same neighborhood. I thought I was nuts. No one else, I thought, can possibly feel this way or they'd be talking about it. That I could find myself in the middle of
Years went by and I didn't seem much crazier than anyone else - more anxious, more shy, certainly - but not crazier. When I finally got around to discussing this with a couple of people it turns out we pretty much all feel that way in varying degrees. A friend told me her mother called it "sitting on a cloud" which, hands down, sounds better than "being a lunatic".
Someone needs to explain this to children. I can't be the only one who was frightened. And while they're at it, they can teach them to draw by employing the right sides of their brains - which is just about as mindful of the moment as you can get. It's a nice vacation from feeling crazy and everybody's drawings turn out great.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Pugshot
Puppy, who I shall commence calling Poppy in honor of her bright future, was sold to an eighty-something couple who lived on a busy road and have an unfenced yard. The "breeder", and I use the term loosely, passed her off as a pug, the closest thing to an upholstered concrete block as you can get in dogdom. How odd, then, that she clocks in around 75 mph as she makes the circuit through living room, dining room, kitchen, over the back of your chair, between your feet, across the dining room table, and ricochets off your chest. Pugs, unlike Poppy, do not normally require the use of a salmon net to retrieve them when they escape into the wild blue yonder.
As much as they loved her, despite the gouges from loving
So, thanks to the people who do big things like fomenting social change and reuniting families. But, thanks also, to the people who scoop poop at the Humane Society, and the volunteer surgeons at the Feral Cat Coalition, and thanks to the rescue groups who even take in rescues that don't quite fit the profile. Thanks Vicky.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Always Take a Camera to Costco
I guess they wouldn't call them Veggie Veggieballs. That would be redundant. Accurate, but redundant.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Why I Don't Want to Be a Kid Again
The film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are perfectly captures the frustration, fear, meanness, savagery, and helplessness that is childhood. With big fuzzy monsters. And a kid so obnoxious that women everywhere will be gobbling birth control pills.
Some things are just better on paper.
It has a PG rating. I think it stands for pretty grim.
Some things are just better on paper.
It has a PG rating. I think it stands for pretty grim.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Party Town, USA
My friend, M, went to the Benson Hotel for champagne and dancing to a big band on new year's eve. She thought for a couple of days in advance about which dress to wear, and tried to get to bed early the night before. I went to Astoria. Oregon.
We started at the Pig 'n' Pancake for a little visit with friends passing through town. The wait staff kept giving us meaningful glances and heaving heavy sighs, so we didn't linger. They wanted to go home. A Pig 'n' Pancake official locked the foyer doors behind us before we even had our jackets zipped up against the (periodically horizontal) rain. Our friends set off for Long Beach. We went looking for debauchery or a reasonable facsimile thereof. With dancing, please.
Astoria is dotted with a variety of bars, pubs, and restaurants. One promising doorway had a portable fence like the one that keeps you in line at the bank - only they didn't have anyone to keep in line. And, besides, they wouldn't let us in because one of us left home without a driver's license. Being, clearly, decades past legal drinking age (face it, Oil of Olay can't work miracles) wasn't good enough and the conscientious bouncer turned us away.
In the end we dropped into a waterfront lounge and, lo, on the table was a card advertising dancing in the banquet room! What we found was a fresh faced DJ with enormous headphones playing electronic music to a virtually empty room, save for one medium-small girl in a party dress perched on the edge of a chair swinging her legs to the beat. A tiny disco ball twirled on the ceiling. Never being of a mind to pass up a dance floor with plenty of elbow room, we asked the DJ to look in his library for something suitable for swing dancing. He knit his teenage brow and allowed as he might have some Rat Pack music.
Good enough. We shed our shoes (the dance floor was carpeted...) and got right to it - a little east coast, some one step, a dip here and there - and darned if people didn't stop and look. And then they came in. And then they danced, too. Even when the DJ played YMCA. At midnight the restaurant staff brought us plastic hats, horns, and tiny cups of champagne. It was just dandy.
Happy New Year, loyal readers. Both of you.
We started at the Pig 'n' Pancake for a little visit with friends passing through town. The wait staff kept giving us meaningful glances and heaving heavy sighs, so we didn't linger. They wanted to go home. A Pig 'n' Pancake official locked the foyer doors behind us before we even had our jackets zipped up against the (periodically horizontal) rain. Our friends set off for Long Beach. We went looking for debauchery or a reasonable facsimile thereof. With dancing, please.
Astoria is dotted with a variety of bars, pubs, and restaurants. One promising doorway had a portable fence like the one that keeps you in line at the bank - only they didn't have anyone to keep in line. And, besides, they wouldn't let us in because one of us left home without a driver's license. Being, clearly, decades past legal drinking age (face it, Oil of Olay can't work miracles) wasn't good enough and the conscientious bouncer turned us away.
In the end we dropped into a waterfront lounge and, lo, on the table was a card advertising dancing in the banquet room! What we found was a fresh faced DJ with enormous headphones playing electronic music to a virtually empty room, save for one medium-small girl in a party dress perched on the edge of a chair swinging her legs to the beat. A tiny disco ball twirled on the ceiling. Never being of a mind to pass up a dance floor with plenty of elbow room, we asked the DJ to look in his library for something suitable for swing dancing. He knit his teenage brow and allowed as he might have some Rat Pack music.
Good enough. We shed our shoes (the dance floor was carpeted...) and got right to it - a little east coast, some one step, a dip here and there - and darned if people didn't stop and look. And then they came in. And then they danced, too. Even when the DJ played YMCA. At midnight the restaurant staff brought us plastic hats, horns, and tiny cups of champagne. It was just dandy.
Happy New Year, loyal readers. Both of you.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
We Shall, We Shall Not Be Moved
Last night I climbed into my time machine and went back to 1970. A room full of people with scrawny ponytails (men) and lumpy dresses (women) sat, rapt, in the candlelight, on mismatched thrift store furniture, listening to a man sing without moving his lips. It's a style that's thrifty with the alphabet and doesn't expend much energy. Consonants, particularly at the end of words, are discouraged. "Aay wah to lay doww besiii you..." (and, honestly, am I the last person on earth who cares about lay and lie?). It made for excellent napping on a dandy thrift store sofa while waiting for the band we really wanted to hear.
Said band was billed as a dance band. And so it was. Unfortunately, it was not a dance audience. A modest space for dancing had been cleared on the excellent hardwood floor and the band leader announced, first thing, that it would be a good thing to move the tables back as far as possible to make more room for dancing. Imagine the imposing stone faces of Easter Island. Now imagine them sitting around a dance floor, impassive, in lumpy dresses and inadequate ponytails, arms (if they had any) crossed. That's how much they moved. Not at all.
The most recent season of Dancing with the Stars introduced some new dance genres and team performances and last night's exercise has inspired an idea that I think is worth sending in. Obstacle dancing. The audience moves their chairs onto the floor and throws down random clothing items like stocking caps and jackets. Coffee tables with sharp corners ramp up the excitement. A wandering Labrador retriever pulls in the family demographic. They can hold the preliminaries in Portland, Oregon. The course is already set up.
Said band was billed as a dance band. And so it was. Unfortunately, it was not a dance audience. A modest space for dancing had been cleared on the excellent hardwood floor and the band leader announced, first thing, that it would be a good thing to move the tables back as far as possible to make more room for dancing. Imagine the imposing stone faces of Easter Island. Now imagine them sitting around a dance floor, impassive, in lumpy dresses and inadequate ponytails, arms (if they had any) crossed. That's how much they moved. Not at all.
The most recent season of Dancing with the Stars introduced some new dance genres and team performances and last night's exercise has inspired an idea that I think is worth sending in. Obstacle dancing. The audience moves their chairs onto the floor and throws down random clothing items like stocking caps and jackets. Coffee tables with sharp corners ramp up the excitement. A wandering Labrador retriever pulls in the family demographic. They can hold the preliminaries in Portland, Oregon. The course is already set up.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Do You Hear What I Hear?
November 2nd Newsweek article, The Devil Loves Cell Phones, and subtitled, Silence isn't just golden -- it's heavenly, rails on about cell phones, yelling TV pundits and Twitter, but nowhere does it mention the Devil's most insidious weapon: Christmas Muzak®.
I don't shop. Oh, I buy stuff. But I don't shop as a form of entertainment. However, I am a devoted mother, and when my son and his intended bride asked me to look for a birdcage as a wedding decoration, it became my mission to unearth the personality-plus cage of all cages. The best one is on ebay, but by the time the auction is over it'll be too late. Thus, I felt compelled to go to brick and mortar stores. In shopping malls. In November.
Note to Pier One Imports, Michael's Arts and Crafts, and the antique mall: If your Christmas music is boring holes in my brain like a cross between mad cow disease and a railroad spike, I can't think about purchasing your products. In fact, that person sprinting out the door that you think, considering the speed, must be a shoplifter? That's me.
I don't shop. Oh, I buy stuff. But I don't shop as a form of entertainment. However, I am a devoted mother, and when my son and his intended bride asked me to look for a birdcage as a wedding decoration, it became my mission to unearth the personality-plus cage of all cages. The best one is on ebay, but by the time the auction is over it'll be too late. Thus, I felt compelled to go to brick and mortar stores. In shopping malls. In November.
Note to Pier One Imports, Michael's Arts and Crafts, and the antique mall: If your Christmas music is boring holes in my brain like a cross between mad cow disease and a railroad spike, I can't think about purchasing your products. In fact, that person sprinting out the door that you think, considering the speed, must be a shoplifter? That's me.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Darwin at Work
One of my favorite stories from a fellow blogger: Man standing at the freeway exit waiting for a handout. He's holding a square of cardboard... with nothing written on it. Subliminal message? "Will work for Sharpie."
How many times have you wondered - where do the cardboard sign people get those nice black markers?
For about a month, I have been involved with helping someone get off the street and into some sort of life - a life that the most of us would regard as sorely inadequate. Just a warm, safe place to stay. Food to eat. An address.
A number of years ago, I attended a dinner party that included a well-to-do real estate broker and his wife who were clad in matching Planet Hollywood sweatshirts. The conversation turned to prisoners in state custody and the education in social skills and job training provided to them on the taxpayer's dime. Said real estate broker maintained, hotly, that our money was being wasted mollycoddling prisoners. Make 'em do their time, pay their debt to society, and then kick them out and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps and if they pulled hard enough, by golly, they could be just like him! (hopefully, without the sweatshirts) But, I digress. Sort of.
The person I've been helping isn't an ex-con. This person just made a lifetime of dumb choices that put him where none of us ever expect to be. A dear friend of mine, concerned for my sanity and pocketbook, told me, "Don't get involved. There's always someone who will take care of these people." But, you know what? It's not true. Here's what happens if you are homeless, penniless, ill, and have no transportation. You can stay in a shelter for the night, 1. if you know where to go, 2. you manage to sign in between the hours of 5:45 and 6:30, 3. you have a TB card, and 4. your name gets called in the nightly lottery for beds. You can be seen in the free clinic if you can be there on Thursday night between 7 and 9 pm. (Hmm, we need to do some tests! Come back in a week, and try to not die in the meantime.) A wonderful entity called Northwest Pilot Project (seriously, they are a blessing for some) will help you find housing if you are willing to come back day after day and wait for 5 hours in the hope that you'll be one of the four people they can see that day. Oh wait, they can't help you find housing if you have no income. You might be able to rent an SRO (single room occupancy - got to learn the jargon) if you have $40 for the application, no criminal record, and good credit. The waiting list for subsidized housing is over a year long unless you're a pregnant woman, HIV positive, or in a recovery program (note to self: plan ahead!).
And don't ever, ever, ever lose your I.D. Nothing happens without identification.
I don't have any answers. The real estate broker would probably tell me this was evolution doing its job and I'm messing up the program by not allowing the weak member of the herd to be taken down by the wolves.
(Note to self: buy Sharpies)
How many times have you wondered - where do the cardboard sign people get those nice black markers?
For about a month, I have been involved with helping someone get off the street and into some sort of life - a life that the most of us would regard as sorely inadequate. Just a warm, safe place to stay. Food to eat. An address.
A number of years ago, I attended a dinner party that included a well-to-do real estate broker and his wife who were clad in matching Planet Hollywood sweatshirts. The conversation turned to prisoners in state custody and the education in social skills and job training provided to them on the taxpayer's dime. Said real estate broker maintained, hotly, that our money was being wasted mollycoddling prisoners. Make 'em do their time, pay their debt to society, and then kick them out and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps and if they pulled hard enough, by golly, they could be just like him! (hopefully, without the sweatshirts) But, I digress. Sort of.
The person I've been helping isn't an ex-con. This person just made a lifetime of dumb choices that put him where none of us ever expect to be. A dear friend of mine, concerned for my sanity and pocketbook, told me, "Don't get involved. There's always someone who will take care of these people." But, you know what? It's not true. Here's what happens if you are homeless, penniless, ill, and have no transportation. You can stay in a shelter for the night, 1. if you know where to go, 2. you manage to sign in between the hours of 5:45 and 6:30, 3. you have a TB card, and 4. your name gets called in the nightly lottery for beds. You can be seen in the free clinic if you can be there on Thursday night between 7 and 9 pm. (Hmm, we need to do some tests! Come back in a week, and try to not die in the meantime.) A wonderful entity called Northwest Pilot Project (seriously, they are a blessing for some) will help you find housing if you are willing to come back day after day and wait for 5 hours in the hope that you'll be one of the four people they can see that day. Oh wait, they can't help you find housing if you have no income. You might be able to rent an SRO (single room occupancy - got to learn the jargon) if you have $40 for the application, no criminal record, and good credit. The waiting list for subsidized housing is over a year long unless you're a pregnant woman, HIV positive, or in a recovery program (note to self: plan ahead!).
And don't ever, ever, ever lose your I.D. Nothing happens without identification.
I don't have any answers. The real estate broker would probably tell me this was evolution doing its job and I'm messing up the program by not allowing the weak member of the herd to be taken down by the wolves.
(Note to self: buy Sharpies)
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